From Defeat to Triumph: Lessons from Joshua 8

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

All right, we're going to continue our study in the book of Joshua.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Joshua chapter eight.

We're going to conclude Joshua chapter eight.

And we have a small passage of scripture here this evening, but very interesting.

We're.

We're following up on the victory in AI.

If you remember, Joshua and the Israelites went to AI the first time with pride, with self confidence.

And remember, they said, there's not that many people there.

This isn't like Jericho.

We can go right into AI and do this easily.

And they didn't seek the Lord's wisdom.

They didn't seek the Lord's guidance.

And in so doing, they lost.

They lost a lot of people.

And they faced not only a physical defeat, but also a spiritual defeat.

And we realized that the reason being is that there was sin in the camp.

There was a fellow named Achan, and he had taken things against what God's plan was for Jericho, and he had taken them for himself.

He had hidden that and concealed that sin.

But we know that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we can't conceal our sin from the Lord.

And we.

Ultimately, what happened is that Achan and his family were judged for that sin.

And when Israel got that sin right in the camp, they then sought after the Lord.

Joshua sought after the plans of the Lord.

They went to AI again and had a wonderful victory.

And that shows that there's victory in obedience.

There's.

There's salvation in believing in the truth of who the Lord is.

And then ultimately, what we see here at the end of Joshua chapter eight is the end of the victory.

And the end of the victory is worship.

The end of the victory is obedience.

And so in starting in verse number 30, Joshua is going to build an altar unto the Lord.

And it's.

It's not just a spontaneous altar building.

We know that this is actually him following what God had told them to do all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 27.

And so we're going to look at Deuteronomy chapter 27 and 28 as well, because it's going to tell us why they're doing what they're doing.

And so it says in verse number 30 of Joshua 8, then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord God of Israel into Mount Ebal.

Now, you need to know Mount Ebal, because that is going to play a huge portion of this story.

It's going to play a big part in the story.

So you have Mount Ebal, and then Mount Ebal is located very close to another mountain called a Mount Gerizim.

Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are very close, and basically they create a natural amphitheater.

So if you were to talk on Mount Gerizim, you could hear it at the foot of Mount Ebal and vice versa.

And that's going to play a part in what they're going to do here as well.

So Joshua builds a altar on the Mount Ebal, and as it says in verse 31, as Moses, the servant of the Lord commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, which no man hath lift up any iron.

And they offer thereupon burnt offerings unto the Lord and sacrifice peace offerings.

So God called them to do this.

He said, when you get to the promised land, build an altar on Mount Ebal and do something specific.

And we're going to go back to Deuteronomy, chapter 27, because I think we need to understand the context of what they're doing here.

And really what it is is it's a worshipful obedience to the Lord for his promises, but it's also a warning of the cursing that is found in disobedience.

If you remember the Mosaic covenant, God goes through with Israel different covenants.

Some of you know the Abrahamic covenant, some of you know of the no Attic covenant.

Some of you know the Mosaic covenant.

There's the Davidic covenant.

There's all these different covenants, these different promises.

And the Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant.

If you remember the Mosaic covenant, it was this.

If you follow the law, there's going to be blessings.

If you obey God, there's going to be blessings.

If you live in disobedience to God, there's going to be cursings, there's going to be separation, there's going to be punishment.

And so Deuteronomy, chapter 27, God tells Moses, and he, by extension, Israel, to, when they get to the promised land, to be reminded of the blessings of obedience and the cursings of disobedience.

So Deuteronomy, chapter 27, it says, and Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people Saying, keep all the commandments which I command you this day.

And it shall be on that day when you shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth.

That thou shalt see set thee for great stones and plaster with them.

Plaster.

And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law when thou art passed over.

And thou mayest go in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth, a land that floweth with milk and honey, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee.

So the idea would be that when they get to the promised land, this is what they're supposed to do.

They have not done that yet, okay?

In the book of Joshua, all the way up from Joshua 1 to 7, they have not done that yet.

In chapter 8 is when they do this, verse 4.

Therefore it shall be when you're gone over Jordan that you shall set up on these stones which I command you this day in Mount Ebal.

So they had a directive, and they knew what they were supposed to do, and they knew where they were to do it at.

That would be at Mount Ebal, verse five.

And there shall.

And there shalt thou bind an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones that thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.

So this is an exact fulfillment of the plan of God that's happening here in Joshua chapter 8.

Thou shalt bind the altar of the Lord thy God with whole stones, and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God.

And thou shalt offer peace offerings.

And shalt thou shalt eat there and rejoice before the Lord thy God.

And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

And then he's going to give them some specific things that they're supposed to do.

And Moses said.

And Moses and the priest of the Levites spake unto all Israel, saying, take heed and hearken, O Israel.

This day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God.

Thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day.

So then he says, this is what you're going to do.

There's going to be the blessings.

The blessings are going to be on Mount Gerizim.

And Moses charged the people the same day, saying, these shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people when ye are come over Jordan.

And so we see the different tribes.

We see Simeon and Levi and Judah and Issachar and Joseph and Benjamin.

So These tribes were to be on the side of the blessings there at Mount Gerizim.

And then he said, on the other side, on Mount Ebal, there's going to be the curses, verse 13.

And these shall stand upon Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulon, Dan, and Naftali.

And then you have those two different people, those two.

Two different groups on each side.

Verse 14.

The Levite shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image an abomination unto the Lord and work of hands of the craftsman, and put it in a secret place.

And all the people shall answer and say Amen.

And so what we're actually going to see In Deuteronomy chapter 27 is all the curses.

It's essentially warnings, warnings of things not to do.

If you do this, you will face curses, you will face separation, you will.

You will face judgment.

And so it goes on and on.

We don't have time to go through all the curses, but if you have time, it would be interesting to read through that.

And then I find it interesting that at the end of each one of the curses, they have to say Amen, which basically means they're in agreement to that.

They understand that.

But then we see in.

In chapter 28 that the blessings come, verse 2, and it says, and all the blessings shall come on thee and overtake thee.

If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

Bless shalt thou be in the city, and bless shalt thou be in the field.

Bless shalt thou be the fruit of thy body and fruit of the ground, and the fruit of the cattle, and the increase of the of the kind and the flocks of the sheep.

The bless shall thee be thy basket in the store.

And he goes on and talks about all the blessings that they can find in obedience.

And so essentially, what God is telling the Israelites to do is to be reminded of the law and be reminded of God's presence and his power and his purpose, and then ultimately understand the blessings of obedience and the difficulties and the pain of disobedience.

And so that was the reminder there in Deuteronomy, chapter 27 and 28.

So if you go to Joshua chapter 8 again, that's exactly what they're doing here.

They're reminding themselves of God's presence.

The way that God had revealed himself to the people of Israel at this point was obviously through the law.

That was God's heart for his people.

But he also had revealed himself through their provisions and their power and the guidance and all the things that God had shown through their wanderings.

And ultimately, as they come into the promised land.

So what they're doing here is after this victory in AI, they're being reminded of God's promise to them.

Now, going back to Joshua chapter one, Remember, Joshua chapter one gave us a reminder that the law of God should not depart out of their mouths.

That was back in verse number eight of chapter one.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate there and day and night.

So the reminder was that the law needed to be before the people.

God needed to be before the people.

Verse 32.

All the way back in Joshua chapter 8, this is what happened.

He's obeying God's command.

And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

So the challenge was to write down a copy of the law of Moses.

Now, they already knew the law of Moses.

That's what they lived by.

But again, sometimes we have to be reminded of the things that God has done for us.

We have to be reminded of what God has taught us over and over again.

Obviously, the Israelites needed to be reminded about God, because many times they go astray.

And same thing with us.

We have to be reminded of the things of God.

So that's what this is.

They knew the law of Moses intellectually, but again, they needed to be reminded, as it says here, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel and all Israel and their elders and the officers and their judges, stood on this side of the ark, and on that side before the priests of the Levites, which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as he that was born among them, half of them over against Mount Gerizim, and half of them over against Mount Ebal.

So remember, Deuteronomy told us that half of the tribes are over on one side, half of the tribes are in the other.

And then you had the Levites in the middle, middle proclaiming the law of God.

So it says, as Moses, the servant of God, servant of the Lord, had commanded before that they should bless the people of Israel.

So there's the blessings and the cursings, verse 34.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the Law.

There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation, which the women and the little ones and the strangers that were conversant within them, so among, among them.

So what we basically see is this.

They come after the victory.

They say, okay, we're going to obey God.

We're going to go back to what God told us to do, and we're going to remind all of the people of Israel God's promise to us that he will be faithful to us and that we are called to be faithful to Him.

And so one side of the group is there hearing the blessings, and the blessings are good things.

We should hear the blessings, right?

Do this, and this is what's going to happen.

And then on the other side was the cursing.

Don't do this.

Be aware of this.

Stay away from the things of the pagan people there in the land of Canaan.

Don't build for yourself idols.

And so this altar is built there and they offer sacrifices.

And anytime we see an altar with a sacrifice, it's linked to worship.

And so we see appropriate acts of worship and consecration to God following a great victory.

And that should be the same thing for us when we see victories in our life, when we see God answering prayer, when we see God working in our midst, we should all, in appropriate manner, worship God in the way that he has called us to worship Him.

Now, he doesn't call us to offer animals on a sacrifice altar.

We, we're not called to do that anymore.

But he does call us to give a sacrifice.

Romans chapter 12 says, to give our bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service.

And so the answer to the victory in our life should not be, look at how great.

Mr.

So and so is, or look how this is.

So and so is.

And, or, or look at how wonderful this situation was in my life.

It's ultimately praising God for the blessings and the gifts that he's given us.

Because the Bible says in James chapter one that every good gift comes from God.

And so every blessing that we have in our life, every victory that we have in our life comes from the Lord.

So he calls us to worship him.

And so they follow God in obedience.

And the greatest act of obedience that we can do is we can show God that we love him by following his word.

We can say that we're obeying, but the Bible says it's following God not only by word, but also by deed.

And the way that we can worship God is by following what he has called us to do in our lives.

And so it's obviously not drawing attention to man's work, because that's what he said.

He said, I want whole stones not touched by any tools.

He didn't want elaborate carvings.

He didn't want any handiwork on the stones because he didn't want anyone to look at that and say, well, hey, you know, my uncle.

So.

And so he carved that part out there on that altar.

It wasn't about pointing to man.

It was about pointing to the power of God.

And so therefore, that's why he wanted just whole stones, no carvings, nothing ornate on it.

He wanted whole stones, which no man had any tool against it.

And so they read the blessings and the cursings.

And so it's an act of obedience.

It's an act of worship.

And we know that Joshua was called to be a man of the law, man of the word, and so he obeys the Command of Joshua 1:8, and he reads the law to the people.

And so this is.

This is difficult for many to hear because it's.

It's a long list of things.

And for some people, maybe they were tempted to think, why do we need to be reminded of this?

But they just came out of this battle, and they're going into many more battles, and they need to be reminded of God's presence in their life.

And that's the same thing for us.

Sometimes we think about the things of scripture, and we get so used to it, we hear the same stories over and over again.

I mean, for some of us, we grew up in church, and we heard all the Old Testament stories, all the New Testament stories.

And sometimes if we're not careful, it can be tempting for us just to kind of get so used to hearing it over and over again.

Yeah, I know the gospel.

Yeah, I know that Daniel was a great man of faith.

I know that all these different characters of scripture that we mentioned are great men of faith.

But we need to be reminded of how God has been faithful to so many people throughout all of history.

And he's going to be faithful to us, and he's going to be faithful to the next generation, and he's going to continue on.

And that was the reminder there for them.

And so they go to this very specific place.

It's about 25 miles away from AI.

So they leave and they intentionally go to Ebal and Gerizim, and it's a.

It's a great place to do this because there is that natural amphitheater and because of the hills, and they go there and they're able to do this wonderful action of worship.

And so this event at this place shows that Israel had victories in the Lord, but ultimately they're going to continue.

They should continue to trust the Lord in everything that they do.

And that's what we should do in our own life.

But the difference that I think that we need to take in in our own minds is this in.

In Joshua, chapter eight, they're reminded of the blessings of following God and the cursings of not following God.

Basically, the Mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant.

It wasn't an unconditional covenant.

Some covenants that God gives to us are unconditional, meaning we don't have to do anything, God's going to do it.

But for them, the Mosaic covenant was this.

If you're obedient to the law, you will be blessed.

If you're not obedient to the law, you won't be blessed.

And I want to tell you here tonight that we don't follow.

We don't live in the Mosaic Law anymore.

I mean, I don't know about you guys, but there's times in my life that, yes, I need to be reminded that there's blessings in following the Lord.

But the truth is, is that even when I stumble, God is still faithful.

God is not going to cast us aside.

And so we live in something called the new covenant.

Jesus mentions that.

He says this blood is the.

Is the picture of the New Testament, the new covenant.

And, and the beauty is, is that no longer do we have to live in fear of keeping 613 laws and following all of those things.

The beauty that we can find in Jesus Christ is that, yes, as God was faithful to those in Israel, he can still be faithful to us today.

And he will be faithful in us today because of his promise.

So it really boils down to God's promise and the type of promise that he gives us.

And the type of promise that God gives us is the type of promise that's an unconditional promise that if we trust in him, he will bless us.

Now, I don't want to get off track and say that, hey, you can live the way that you want to live.

Romans chapter six tells us that we should not live in abusing grace.

But what I will tell you is this.

We no longer have to live in fear of memorizing all of the law and making sure that we have to keep all the law and making sure that we don't do certain things.

God gives us the freedom and the grace to be able to walk in newness of life and to just trust in him and know that he's going to change our heart.

And the Bible says that the law of God is written on our heart now.

And the law is there to show us where we're bad and show us where God's heart is when it comes to morality.

But ultimately, what we can understand is that we as Christians no longer have to face any more curses because of the fact that we live in the goodness of God and we live in the new covenant and we live in that path that God has extended for us here in the New Testament Church.

But again, I think that there are blessings and understanding that there is a reward for obeying God.

Like, obviously, if someone came up to me and said, well, can I live my life the way that I want to live it and just live free of consequences?

No, there's.

There's earthly consequences for decisions that we make on this side of heaven.

And what we're going to see is that the Israelites faced a lot of those difficulties and curses because of their lack of faithfulness in the Mosaic covenant.

But ultimately, I think that this is a passage of scripture that reminds us just to think about the things that God has done in the past, obey what he has called us to do when it comes to worship, and actually apply the promises of God to our life and to realize that God will be faithful to us as we follow Him.

And so what I will say that's very interesting, though, some people have read the Old Testament and actually said, these are great stories, but there's no proof that these actually happen.

There's actually some historians that will say, you know, we can't really validate anything that happened in the promised land.

We can't validate anything about the Israelites being in, in Egypt and all that kind of stuff.

But I wanted to tell you something very interesting about this passage.

I was doing some research and I had a few folks that had pointed this out to me as well.

But back in 2000, I believe it was 2019, there was an archeological dig at Mount Ebal and Mount Ebal, this place that's mentioned in scripture.

Actually, the, the dig started in, back in 1980.

Back in 1980, they found an altar on Mount Ebal which matched the same description that was found here in Joshua chapter eight.

Very interesting find.

They didn't necessarily link it back to this specific altar, but many scholars believe that it would have been very similar, same place.

So probably the right time.

So that was probably the altar, which is pretty cool.

But then they, when they excavate.

This has nothing to do with Bible, but I Just think this is really interesting.

So if you guys don't find this interesting to me out.

But this is really cool because I think it really links together history and the scriptures and to understand they're the same.

So they, they, when they excavated Mount Ebal in 1980, they made a bunch of trash heaps because, you know, they pull out a bunch of ground and dirt and foundation and all that kind of stuff, and basically they don't find anything.

They just throw it into a big pile.

So I believe there was three big piles around Mount Ebal.

Well, there was another group that went back, and I think it was in 2018 or 2019.

They had some new technology of what they call wet sifting, which basically means they take this big chunk of dirt and rock and they sift it through water and they pull out new artifacts.

Well, actually, they found an artifact.

It's very small, but it's a lead tablet that they found there in the junk pile, basically.

And it was a lead tablet that would have been found right next to this altar.

And would you believe that on the lead tablet it had the cursings, like, basically, if you don't obey God, you will be judged, you will be, you will be cursed.

And it was exactly, almost word for word, what we see here.

Now, they looked into it, and of course, all the skeptics are like, let's put it under the test.

Let's.

Let's test this out.

So they tested it out and they could trace back the lead tablet to the time period exactly when we believe that Joshua would have been in Mount Ebal with the Israelites.

It's really interesting.

They found basically an ancient type of Hebrew that would have matched up at the exact same time of Joshua being there with the Israelites.

So some people would question, what was that tablet?

Well, the tablet was basically could have been what was used for the whole nation of Israel.

Maybe there was a small tablet that they, you know, did this to remember that the whole issue by.

But then also some people think that maybe there was an individual that was there that basically wrote in a tablet, the reminder for himself to take that with him and obviously left it there.

And so I just find that very interesting because I know that we don't need archaeological digs to validate what we believe.

But it's always nice when the archeological digs line up with exactly what the Bible says.

And so even scholars that are not Christians do count back to that time frame when this lead tablet would have been around.

It was like the late Bronze Age, which would Line up exactly when they were there in the land of Canaan.

So I was doing that research and I was like, wow, that's just another reason why we know that the word of God is true.

Because there have.

There's never really been an archaeological dig or find that has ever contradicted scripture.

Actually, it's only validated what we see in scripture.

There's other cases of this.

Years ago there was, you know, there's people in the Bible called the Hittites.

And for many years people questioned the Bible because they said that there was no way that the Hittites ever existed, because there's no proof that the Hittites existed.

Well, later on they had some archaeological digs and they found that the Hittites existed.

So again, we don't need the archeological digs and finds to validate it because we believe by faith we don't have to see.

We believe that this is the word of God.

But again, it just strengthens the argument of all the things that we see here in scripture that these were real people dealing with real issues at a real time, long time ago.

But ultimately we can see that all pointing to the truth of the word of God.

And so I just thought that that was super interesting to look at when it came to the story there of Mount Ebal and, and the curses.

And so I. I think that one of the lessons that we can take with us, along with some of the ones that we've already talked about, would be essentially this.

We.

We need to take time, as we do on Sunday nights, for testimonies.

But, but the testimony should be.

Should be focused on what God has done for us in the past.

And, and then we look at what God has done for us in the past or what he's doing for us in the present.

And we extrapolate that out to say this.

If God has been faithful to us before and he's being faithful us now, he's going to be faithful for, for us tomorrow and the next day and for our children and for our grandchildren.

And, and I think that so many times we're tempted to doubt whether or not God is going to be there with us through the struggles because of our human nature, because of our shortsighted mindset.

And so in Joshua, chapter eight, we see that it's really a story of victory.

We, we really see it as a story of worship.

We see it as a story of being a. Reminding them of the law of God.

And we need to be reminded of the law of God, even though we don't live by the law of God, we need to be reminded of the word of God so that we can understand what God wants for us and so that we can live in obedience to him.

So the end of Joshua 8 just ties that all together.

And I find that so, so interesting.

Well, we're going to Joshua chapter nine.

We have a few more minutes here.

We're going to kind of get launched off here and we're going to look at a little bit of Joshua chapter 9.

Joshua is one of the longer books of, of the Bible.

And we're going to try to go through this book as quickly as we possibly can.

But at the same time, we do want to give it its due diligence as we're studying it out.

And so anytime we get to one of these strange times, I don't want to stop and just leave off.

I want us to kind of jump into chapter A9 there.

So in Joshua chapter 9, we see the story go on a little bit further.

Joshua and the nation of Israel just come off of this huge victory.

They come off of this time of worship.

They come off of being reminded of the power of God and the presence of God.

And so now what we're going to see is that there's going to be a more conflict that comes.

And that's how it always goes.

By the way, sometimes when we have victories in our life, I do think this is a point to, to note, and we see this in scripture, and I think we've all kind of experienced this probably in our own lives as well, is that sometimes at the, behind the back of a spiritual victory comes the next spiritual challenge.

Sometimes we wish we could just coast and, and rest in that spiritual victory.

I know there's been times in my life that we've had these really wonderful spiritual high events and we're all excited, but that's, that's the time when sometimes Satan comes in and attacks.

And that's what we can see happening here.

So Joshua chapter nine says, and it came to pass when all the kings which were on this side of Jordan, in the hills and in the valleys and all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the parasites and the Hivites and the Jebusite heard thereof, that they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with the nation of Israel with one accord.

So what happens?

Well, there's victory, there's success, there's the power of God, there's the blessings of God, and ultimately they're worshiping and there's this great unity within the midst of the Israelites.

But guess what?

Just as much as there's unity on the side of the Israelites, now there's coming a seeming unity with evil against the Israelites.

And we know that throughout history that there have been individuals who hate the people of God, not because they hate the people of God, but because they hate God.

And that's essentially what Jesus tells us.

He says, they're going to hate you because they hate me.

And that's the reality of things.

Anytime we're living in a spiritual victory, anytime we see something happening for the good of the Lord, there's going to be those that are not on the side of the Lord that come against that.

And that's exactly what happens here in chapter nine.

They hear of it, the testimony rings out.

And I think that's another lesson for us to also take as a lesson in our own lives is because know, sometimes I think that we live so insulated lives that nobody around us even knows about the power of God.

I mean, I, I.

It hurts my heart every single time.

And it's not any of our faults.

I think it's just in general the way that our world is today.

But it hurts my heart all the time when people are like, well, where's your church at?

I've never heard of it.

And, you know, I, I mean, I, I know that Middletown is growing.

I understand that.

But it's.

We're not living in, in a metropolis here.

Okay.

All right.

We're still relatively small in comparison to some other cities in this world.

It's my heart, and I think it's probably all of our hearts.

And I know it's God's plan that we would, we would be a testimony, we would be a lighthouse to our community that people, whether they agreed with us or not, would know what Middletown Baptist is for, what Middletown Baptist is doing.

And, and we see here that all these people, the Hittites, the Himrites, the Canaanites, the parasites, all these ones that were in pagan worship that were against God, they hear what's going on and they gather together to fight against them.

Why are they fighting against them?

Because they're against good.

They're against what God has for them and, and the victory of Israel and, and the spreading of good.

And obviously we see this in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Anytime God is doing something that counteracts what culture thinks to be good, there's a pushback against it.

And that's going to happen today.

Anytime we as the church are living for good in this world, there's going to be a pushback against us from evil.

And, and so just as much as we want people of our community to know what we're about, there's blessings and difficulties with that.

The blessing would be that more people come to Jesus Christ.

The difficulty with that is that people that aren't for Jesus are going to come against us.

You know, there's been a lot of people that have been very nice to me in my life until I start telling them what I believe.

And maybe they're not as nice anymore.

Now, again, we're not, we're not hateful by what we believe, but many times what we believe can be considered to be hateful for, for many people in our culture.

So what I would say is this, be ready if we live boldly for Jesus, and if we live boldly for the word of God, be expecting people that come against us.

That's just the reality of it.

Every Christian, every person of God, from the Old Testament to the New, when they stood up for good, faced opposition.

Okay, what we usually do in American Christianity is we say this.

Well, I don't want opposition, so I'm going to push it as far as that line is.

And then from that line, I'm not going to cross over it because I don't want persecution.

I don't want anyone to think badly of me.

I don't want to step on any toes.

But I would want to challenge all of us here this evening, challenge myself, is that I think we should be crossing that line a lot more.

I think we should be allowing ourselves to be bold in our witness so that people who are against the things that we're for know that.

And essentially, not that we try, but essentially people would be against us because of what we're for.

And so what we're going to see here is that's exactly what happens.

They come against the nation of Israel.

And so when the Canaanite kings hear how the Lord delivered Jericho, which Jericho would have been a huge city at that time, he.

He gave them Jericho and he gave them AI.

Now they have a reason to be afraid.

And they, they hear that this God of Israel.

Oh, and by the way, I didn't mention this to you guys about that, that lead tablet that they found.

One of the really interesting things about that lead tablet is the name Yahweh is on that tablet.

It's the first mentioned historical mention of the God of Israel.

And a lot of times the, the skeptics would Say that they weren't using that term until three, 400 years later after this.

And so that's the oldest known archaeological find when the name Yahweh and actually Yahweh's on that tablet three times the God of Israel and they say the word Yahweh on there.

So I just wanted to be clear about that as well.

I think that was kind of one point that I, I left out that I thought was kind of neat about that, that tablet that they found.

But anyway, they come and what do they do?

It says they gather to fight against Joshua and Israel with one accord.

And so this is a, a unified front against good.

They try to defeat Israel and they come head to head.

And so we're going to see how that works for them.

And so look at verse number three with me.

We're going to see this.

The Gibeonites approach Joshua and Israel in another way.

And this is essentially something that we're going to see is because sometimes people are going to come us with a head on attack, but other people are going to come at us from a different angle.

And so the Gibeonites approach Joshua and they come in a way that's deceitful.

And sometimes the way that the enemy hits us is he.

It's a straight on with straight up evil and we know that it's coming.

But sometimes evil comes from another place that essentially looks like it's not going to harm us, but it comes to us in a place of deceit and ultimately evil.

Verse 3.

And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to AI, they did work willily.

And that's essentially a way that we're seeing deceptful, deceitful and, and, and they're going to come against him.

And, and then it goes farther here and it says this and went and made as it if they had been ambassadors and took old sacks upon their asses and wine bottles old and rent and bound up and old shoes and clouded upon their feet, old garments upon them and all the bread of their provisions and was dry and moldy.

And so we see that they come in a way that is deceitful.

We see that they're coming in a way.

Essentially the Gibeonites are trying to deceive Israel into making a peace treaty with them.

And, and we know that Israel is forbidden to make peace treaties with any of the tribes of Canaan.

That's told to us in Exodus chapter 23.

So remember God said don't make any treaties with, with anybody in the land of Canaan.

Don't do that because that's going to allow you to leak in the pagan ways into your culture.

And that's not what we want.

That's not what God wants.

And so they, they have these different methods of deception that they use.

They, they were as it says there that will be is crafty basically, or clever.

They misrepresent themselves.

They, they pretend as it says, they made as if they had been ambassadors.

So they come with deceit, they come with being, pretending to be these ambassadors.

And they even gave a false evidence which essentially they, you see that they, they put on a costume.

They, they, they, they put these clothes on that they pretended to be old garments and they acted like they were in need and they pretended like they were from a far away land beyond their appearance.

They, they lied straight up.

They, they said that we're coming from far away land, verse six.

And they went to Joshua into the camp of Gilgal and said unto him, and to the men of Israel we become from a far country now, therefore make ye a league with us.

So they take a few different steps and, and I don't want to dig too deep into this here this evening for the sake of time, but what I will say is this.

Sometimes evil comes through the front door and it wears evil and it says, we're evil, we're bad, we're coming after you, we're attacking you.

Sometimes evil comes from a different direction.

They, they package themselves in a way that seems to be less threatening.

That's what these people are trying to do.

The Gibeonites are trying to come in and not be threatening.

They said, hey look, we're going to try to deceive them into coming and joining us.

And essentially instead of fighting against them, they wanted to deceive them.

And what, what I want to warn you about here in according to Scripture, that what we see is that sometimes Satan in his evil ways he can masquerade in a way that seems attractive to the people of God.

And so it's easy for us to delineate a false teacher.

The false teacher comes in immediately and starts talking about things that are openly against the word of God.

But what happens is that sometimes Satan twists the word of God and sometimes there's deception in ways that we don't understand.

And that's what we're going to see.

Israel coming into Israel is going to come into a place where they have to fight against deception.

And so Joshua and the leaders of Israel are, are going to be deceived here.

And we don't have time to get into how they fall into that.

But what I want to essentially tell you and warn you about here before we go here this evening is be so careful about people coming in in a way that seems to be good, that, that, that seems to be non invasive.

That seems to be in a place where, hey, maybe they're good people, maybe they want what's best.

What I would say really clearly is this.

Make sure we go back to the word of God and match what, what people are saying to the word of God, match what people are saying to what God's plan is for a Christian.

So if someone says, hey, I'm a Christian, just because someone says they're a Christian does not mean that they're a Christian.

I, I know that that sometimes is hard for us to scramble up in our brains and think like, well, if they're saying they're a Christian, they have to be a Christian.

Sometimes, number one, people are confused.

They think that they're Christians and they're not.

You know, if I'm asking someone if they're a Christian, that means different things to different people.

Sometimes people just think, well, I'm not a Muslim, I'm not Hindu, so I must be Christian, right?

By default, I'm Christian, I live in America, I'm Christian.

That doesn't mean that someone is a believer.

So there's some people that are just, they're confused themselves and they might lead us astray.

There might be some people that know that they're not Christians, but they understand that being perceived as a Christian might help their cause, right?

It actually might benefit them materially.

It might give them power, it might give them control.

And we see that happen all the time, different cult leaders and different folks to, to that degree.

So we have to be so careful for deception.

And so what we see in verse seven, and the men of Israel said unto the Hivites per venture, ye dwell among us, and how shall we make a league with you?

And so they start, essentially, this is what happens instead of just saying no, God says, we're not making a league with anybody.

We need to be.

We, we have no compromise, no discussion, no, no entertaining the enemy.

Instead they, they ask questions and, and they're interested and they want to know more.

And, and they will go on verse eight.

And they said unto Joshua, we are thy servants.

And Joshua said unto them, who are ye and from what whence come ye?

And they said unto him, from a very far country, thy servants are come because of the Name of the Lord thy God, for we have heard the fame of him and all that he did in Egypt.

So do we see what they did here?

They.

They essentially, they claim to be believers in the one true God, even though they're not.

So we know that in other passages of scripture, we talked about this this past week.

On Wednesday night, even in Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 3 and 4, Paul says, Beware that someone comes and preaches a different Jesus.

Beware of accepting a different spirit, and beware of a different gospel preached to you.

And so, as a church family, my goal is to equip you with the truths of God's word so that we're not deceived by the world.

These, these folks here, the Gibeonites, are coming, and they deceive the nation of Israel because of their lies and because of a lack of discernment.

And so next week, we're going to talk more about how we can be discerning when it comes to those folks who might be trying to deceive us and to do things that God does not want us to do.

God did not want them to have a league or a treaty or any type of friendship with those people there in the land of Canaan.

But because of deception, the Israelites compromised themselves.

And that's what God does not want us to do.

God does not want us to join in with the enemy here in this world.

The Bible says that we're in the world, but we're not of the world.

We cannot love the world.

We cannot want to be part of the world.

We don't want to be part of the world.

We want.

We don't want to join into that.

That's all in first John.

And so what.

What I would challenge us to think about here is that what areas of our life are we allowing ourselves to be open to deception?

Now, some of us might not know that we're being deceived.

That's the trick of it, right?

Some of us might be saying, I think I'm completely fine.

I. I'm not being deceived, right?

The average person that's being deceived doesn't know that they're deceived until it's too late.

And so that's what we have to be careful of.

We have to be on guard.

And the Bible actually gives us some tools to how to be on guard.

Remember what he says in, in Ephesians, Ephesians, chapter six, he says, arm yourself, put.

Put on the armor of God.

Why?

That you may be Able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

The wiles just means the.

The deceit, the lies, the trickery.

And so the Bible.

Actually, we're going to talk about this next week, but you ready?

If you want to prep yourself, read through Ephesians chapter six and Joshua, chapter nine, because we're going to partner the two together.

Because a lot of times we think of the armor of God to be set up for, like an atheist coming after our church and, you know, saying all these bad things.

And that could be the case, but sometimes the armor of God needs to be on for deception when it comes to the things of this world.

Maybe people claiming to say that they love God.

Oh, we love the same God that you love, but if you look at their life, it doesn't match up.

And we have to be very careful about that.

And so we have to be on guard for the Gibeon Heights of this world.

And so what I would tell you is be on guard.

Be aware.

When I.

When I played football, I'll leave with the story.

Some of you that don't know anything about football, this won't mean anything for you.

This probably would have been more appropriate to say last week was super bowl week.

But when I played football, our coach, we had what.

We had a lot of coaches.

We had this small Christian school, but for some reason, like, people came out of the woodwork to coach football.

We had, like, 20 coaches on our team.

I guess everyone liked football.

These guys wanted to relive their glory days.

And we had one coach.

I was always like, he always said this one thing, and I never knew what he meant at first.

He was like, keep your head on a swivel.

Keep your head on a swivel.

I'm like, what does that mean?

And what he was trying to say is, like, always be looking around you.

Like, don't keep your.

Like, don't be just focused on one thing.

And so I. I was like, oh, yeah, I know what.

I know what he's talking about.

Like, I. I know where I'm at on the field, and I know what's going on.

And I was probably like, in my 9th or 10th grade year, I was on defense, and defense is the one that's trying to, like, tackle somebody so you're not with the ball.

And I was running.

This guy had the ball and he was running, and I'm like, I got him.

I'm gonna tackle him.

As I was going after him, well, I was so focused on the guy who had the ball that I was not focused on the guy that was running at me full speed to block me from.

That guy had the ball.

My head wasn't on a swivel.

My head was locked in on that one area, and I didn't even know it was coming.

It just hit me.

And I thought I had gotten hit by a truck, knocked me down.

I didn't know where I was.

I was all dizzy.

And the moral of the story was, is I was so focused on one element in front of me.

I was so narrowly focused that I was not aware for the enemy that was around me.

And that's sometimes what happens with us as Christians.

We're so locked into one area, we're like, okay, they better not come in and do this.

And we're not careful enough to see that there's someone that's coming on from this side.

And that's what happens with the Israelites.

They're so focused on the people that are coming on right away with their swords drawn.

And the people can come into the camp that are not.

They're not as.

They're maybe not as violent as those other people, but they're just as dangerous when they come in.

And so let's.

Let's be warned about that and be aware not to compromise with our families.

You know, I'll say it.

There are some things that we would never allow our families to, like, watch or be around, but we're not careful enough to say, okay, look, that's not something that we're going to be entertained by.

And sometimes we're entertained by things that we would never allow our family to go do in person, but we're entertained by it because the world tells us that that's entertainment.

And, and so what I would caution you with as, As a church family and as an individual and as a Christian is, is what are we allowing ourselves to take into our eye gates and our ear gates?

And what do we enjoy?

What entertains us?

What are we allowing the people that we love to be entertained by?

Because if we're not careful, the ways of the world will seep in.

And we think that.

We think that that's not going to change me.

That's not going to harm me.

I can.

I can.

I can differentiate the two, but what I would say is that we have to just be so cautious about the things that we're taking into our life and that we're accepting and that we're celebrating and that essentially, by the way, biblically defining it, we worship.

We sometimes.

We don't think that it's worship, but what we spend time on and what we love and what we elevate and what we promote is essentially what we're worshiping.

And so let's be careful that we're not like, because sometimes we get, I, I get upset with the Israelites.

I'm like, how on earth can you be taken out of Egypt and cross over the Red Sea and see God's hand working and Moses goes up on Mount Sinai and then they get lost and they build a cow and golden calf and like, what?

What are they doing?

Like, I don't understand that.

I get so frustrated with the Israelites because I'm like, how can you not see that?

But then, you know what?

If there was someone writing a story about us, they would be saying the same thing.

How can you not see the power of God?

How are you so attached to this idol?

And so we, as the church, have fallen into the traps.

Maybe we don't build a golden calf, maybe, maybe we don't have some type of idol that we build with our hands, but we allow the things of this world to become idols for us.

And so that's something else that we're going to have to wrestle with as well when we go through the rest of the story of the Book of Joshua.

Well, we're at the end of the hour.

I'm going to end that.

If you're interested to know more about that, that lead tablet, some of you may be archeological buffs and you want to know more about that tablet, I can share with you the link and you can read more about that tablet.

It's kind of an interesting study.

Again, archeological things don't give us faith, but they're certainly interesting things if you're interested in that kind of stuff.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podc.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro, middletownbaptistChurch.com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.